Scandal will come down to UM chasing dollars

Why is Florida State rumored to be considering the Southeastern Conference?

Because it can get upwards of $40 million a year, perhaps double the haul in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Why is Florida Atlantic's flyweight football program opening against heavyweights Florida, Michigan State and Auburn this season?

Because that football bounty on their players earns $2 million to help pay for the school's new, $70 million stadium.

Why was Nevin Shapiro kept around Miami's athletic department despite being considered earth ooze by some who met him?

Because he donated $50,000 to the department and dangled the hope of gifting much more.

Why are 15 Miami players fighting for their athletic lives?

Because they stepped on a yacht, took some food, went to a club and might have taken something like $1,000 in cash.

And why are the media and focusing on college players rather than the larger issues?

Because that's what we've been conditioned to do. That's what fans care about. That's how it has been for years. That's the big hypocrisy of college sports, that kids who take pennies are immoral while the universities who chase millions are just doing good business.

Reggie Bush took money at Southern Cal? Take away his Heisman Trophy. Ohio State players got tattoos for memorabilia? Take away their dreams. Players from North Carolina to Auburn got money they shouldn't have?

Take off their heads.

These players did nothing illegal by accepting gifts. That's generally the bar of right and wrong in society, isn't it? Yet the same officials who make chase millions in the name of business make it illegal for players to get a meal in the name of the NCAA.

Former Florida coach Urban Meyer had 34 players arrested during his short tenure in Gainesville for everything from stalking women to drunk driving. Yet in a statement of what really matters ESPN asked him to grade Miami players' immoral sins.

Thankfully, Meyer had the good sense to tell everyone this latest college scandal should play out before judgments are doled out. And while individual questions remain to be sorted out, there's no mystery about the overriding issue here.

Miami athletics is desperate for money. Shapiro pretended to have money. And so the folks making policy inside the university made the kind of decision that ultimately gets players in trouble in this strange world of college athletics.

They decided to let Shapiro keep playing inside the toy chest.

That's what will come out eventually if the truth is the goal here. NCAA investigators are directing their aim at former basketball coach Frank Haith and former football recruiting coordinator Clint Hurtt, according to a source.

All the while, it's left to new football coach Al Golden and a few players to answer public questions. University president Donna Shalala and new athletic director Shawn Eichorst have taken to issuing statements.

You can understand why they remain in their bunkers beyond the general idea they want to douse this scandal with silence. Shalala also was the president of Wisconsin when Barry Alvarez was football coach. She wanted to hire him as Miami's coach at one point.

Eichorst was an assistant to athletic director Alvarez at Wisconsin the last several years.

Alvarez and his son lost $1 million in Shapiro's Ponzi scheme. Here's a couple of questions Shalala will get hit with whenever she surfaces:

1) Did your know your good friend, Alvarez, lost $1 million to Shapiro?

2) Why didn't you inform Golden of this issue when he took the job?

Surely, Eichorst knew about this investigation when he came aboard Miami several months ago. He better have. If not, there's no hope for this department moving forward.

As it is, the players sit and wait to see which of them gets caught in the machine. They aren't innocents. No way. But, really now, are they the guilty parties here?